Auntie Beeb

Outed by politicians who own companies worth millions, outed by dispassionate hard hearts who have always bleated on about the BBC being biased. Outed by a government that has as much decency as an evangelical pastor who has been outed by a self-serving evangelical pastor. Outed because its a super duper smoke screen to cover their facile Brexiteering. Outing so that our minds are turned away from the decimation of our society before our very eyes.

The hypocrisy that is surging around us makes it hard to know who is right. Who is culpable. And we, like meek lambs, stand by and watch as our democracy is skewered from the inside out.

As long as a society is polarised with the rich getting more and the poor getting battered, as long as a civilised society sees success as money and money as success, as long as millions are neglected whilst the minority climb into bed with Lucifer, we will have strife.

And there's nothing poetic about living a life on the bread line. Hand to mouth. There is nothing character building about doing three jobs and still not having enough left over to buy a rail ticket to clean air.

And there's nothing as humiliating as a selfish, entitled group of parasites outing another group of people who have quietly gone about their business in becoming successful. They cant have it both ways. Either everybody is equal, or nobody is. Either we're all important or none of us are.

The BBC has been exposed, and I wonder why, all of a sudden our PBS broadcasting company is being singled out for a lashing. What about Therea's May's husband, a senior executive at a $1.4tn investment fund that profits from tax avoidance companies. What about him?

And what about Blair buying up property like a property tycoon?

And what about Jeremy Hunt who is secretly selling off our NHS, with a smug smile?

And what about Grenfell Tower?

And what about our schools. And what about and what about and what about......

I don't need to go on, my fury gives me hiccups. My sadness at the shenanigans of the weak power brokers who are hiding in plain sight gives me acid reflux. And we do nothing, because as yet we don't know what to do.

Meditate?

Rebel?

Pray?

Join hands?

Believe?

Read?

Wait for new leaders?

What is to be done when the young are ill fitted and the old are bent double?

Where to turn whilst our taxes, paid for in blood sweet and tears, are being squandered on illegitimate causes. Where the news is bleak and the puny powerful skip all the way to the bank.

Life is short. One day you're counting baked worms on the asphalt as the summer drifts into a misty autumn. The next moment you are lying with them. None of us get out of this alive. I don't care if there is life on another planet, I don't care if there is AI and UFO's I care that the life we're all living now is healthy and generous. We laugh at the concept of LOVE, but what else is there.

We cannot let the bastards grind us down, and yet they are. They have the upper hand, as long as we're divided the inefficient, deluded wielders of power win.

Protests, courage, truth, transparency, honesty, compassion, seemingly comes from the have nots whilst the weapon makers laugh all the way to their bunkers.

Declaring that Chris gets a lot and Emily doesn't, outing Gary, spurning Tessa, gloating Vanessa, all of it is irrelevant, as long as 'The Daily Wail' print cover stories like this we take our eye off the ball. For isn't that what they want?

We must claw back our decency, get outraged, make noise. We must call out the self serving, we must search for the truth. THE truth, not their truth, my truth but THE truth. We must acknowledge that, little by little, our silly little lives are being shafted.

I love life, with it's dark days and bad. Life, with it's up days and lilac. Clinging on to hope and sense, seeking out optimism, rejecting cynicism, believing in aspiration, embracing the dream. Recognising that we are being manipulated is the first step into changing. For change we must. To quote Barack Obama:

'Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.'

Comments

Hello Jeni. This is extremely well written, moving at times and is, in my opinion worthy of any decent daily front page. Stark in its 'Reality' of UK 2017 but bravely 'Honest' telling us as it is whether we can do anything about it or not.

Where do WE start? is it not elected governments we trust
to do the right thing?
All we ever get are useless MPs some who have never served a days apprenticeship in the meaning of life or just being human. This piece could have been written twenty or ten years ago or could be used again in ten or twenty years? What it doesn't do is 'Pussyfoot' around - would we expect anything less from the talented, at times misunderstood entertaining bombshell that is Dame Jeni Barnett. Thank you - Best wishes David Castlefield.

Still miss Good Food Live, a show that launched so many household names!

2. At July 31, 2017 2:38 PM lisa tudor wrote:

I usually agree with you Jenny but I don't agree with 'quietly getting on with being successful' It is obscene to pay Gary Lineker so much money for a programme that is on average watched by fewer people than Rip off Britain and yet Angela, Gloria and Julia earn a fraction of what Gary takes home. It is unjust and a waste of our money - we have no choice but to pay the license fee and some people find it a struggle; some in our local paper are shamed, their names printed, and they are given fines - if we are legally obliged to pay we should have a say - ignored, obviously.

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